Subject:Music copyrights

If you ask me, the music copyrights are getting out of control. YouTube is deleting videos on a daily basis and TV shows are being editing of music for DVD releases

One that recently confused me ... on another messageboard I go to, someone posted a link to MTV.com that has a year by year video yearbook of the top music videos. I went there, and when I tried to watch a video, I get this message:

"Copyrights restrict us from playing this video outside the U.S."

All I wanted to do was watch a video. It's not like I was gonna steal them to sell on the black market. It's madness I tell ya. These video sites delete music videos, and the music video channels don't even play ones I want to see. How the hell do people watch music videos anymore? I can go to MTV.ca and watch videos, but their selection is quite slim. I want 80s videos. YouTube had 'em, but took 'em away. Off with their heads I say

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:agoraphobicwhackoon08/21/07 at 4:55 am

The music industry is literally on the verge of collapse. It isn't surprising they are taking measures such as this. Sites like youtube and myspace are easily monitored. Its why videos and songs on those sites vanish rather frequently. Its not just MTV or labels that play a part in the removal. Artists do it as well. Axl Rose didn't want demos from Chinese Democracy or live footage of those songs being all over those types of sites. He hired a company called Tsunami to remove the majority of GNR footage from youtube. Most what you can find GNR related is footage/videos of the old band, with a stray video performance of the new band.

When artists and record labels are going to hit a huge roadblock is when they try to deal with p2p sites. Sure, they file lawsuits every now and then against a random user, but people(and these sites) are running their info through proxies, which makes tracing the person(s) much more difficult.

The only way they might be able to tackle the problem is by buying the big p2p sites, but then new ones will just fill the void.

Artists and labels are either gonna have to figure out a new way to make money, or come up with some musical format so cool and innovative that the public is willing to buy all their music so it can be used on the new format(similar to the explosion of CD sales in the late 80's/early 90's).

Anything less will cause the industry to die because the era of free downloading is here to stay.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Haynsoulon08/21/07 at 10:02 am

I think they should create a new file format that can compress 12 - 20 high quality mp3s into a few kilobytes and sell it on p2p sites or something. The music industry will screw up if they don't do something soon.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Marianon08/21/07 at 12:00 pm

If you ask me, the music copyrights are getting out of control. YouTube is deleting videos on a daily basis and TV shows are being editing of music for DVD releases

One that recently confused me ... on another messageboard I go to, someone posted a link to MTV.com that has a year by year video yearbook of the top music videos. I went there, and when I tried to watch a video, I get this message:

"Copyrights restrict us from playing this video outside the U.S."

All I wanted to do was watch a video. It's not like I was gonna steal them to sell on the black market. It's madness I tell ya. These video sites delete music videos, and the music video channels don't even play ones I want to see. How the hell do people watch music videos anymore? I can go to MTV.ca and watch videos, but their selection is quite slim. I want 80s videos. YouTube had 'em, but took 'em away. Off with their heads I sayI agree1I'm sick of my favorite Everly vids being dleeted!

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:mach!ne_he@don08/21/07 at 1:21 pm

Yeah, Youtube has really started to delete alot of videos lately. I remember when I first started using the site about a year and half ago, there were so many more video's on there, alot of the best ones have been deleted now. Its getting harder and harder to watch video's from the '80s and '90s, especially since we don't get Vh1 Classic out here.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:popkingon08/21/07 at 1:36 pm

It is getting absolutely absurd. The YouTube/Viacom $1 billion-dollar lawsuit shows just how out of hand things have gotten. YouTube recently opted to talk to John Stewart and Colbert, probably about the copyright issues., since because of the Viacom lawsuit they can't even show episodes of the Colbert Report of Daily Show anymore. Things have changed, and some of the tv and music companies aren't able to grasp the concept of it all and make a business model out of it.

The record industry is like the sinking titanic, and they've got to do something fast. The CD actually was released 25 years ago this month, so its a very old format now, and frankly its been well past its prime since about 2000. Introducing a new format that would attract people is a good idea. The problem is, that p2p could have changed listening habits so profoundly that the consumers wouldn't care if an attractive new format were introduced at all.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:philboon08/21/07 at 1:41 pm

The only way they might be able to tackle the problem is by buying the big p2p sites, but then new ones will just fill the void.You can't buy up p2p sites: while there may be some which use central search servers to make searching a bit more efficient, p2p as a technology doesn't need them, and there are too many clients out there to close down the whole lot.

IMO the companies could kill the p2p revolution by jumping on the bandwagon with corrupted versions of their own catalogue splatted around the web on hundreds or thousands of employees' PCs (I reckon if they, for example, offered to pay their employees' broadband charges in return for permanent hosting of corrupt mp3s/videos it would very soon become almost impossible to find a real version of a download you're after).

I'm really rather surprised how much copyright (i.e. illegal) material there is on youtube - they have to be very quick to delete material that's complained about, otherwise the entire website could be shut down pronto.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Brian06on08/21/07 at 6:21 pm

The record industry is like the sinking titanic, and they've got to do something fast. The CD actually was released 25 years ago this month, so its a very old format now, and frankly its been well past its prime since about 2000. Introducing a new format that would attract people is a good idea. The problem is, that p2p could have changed listening habits so profoundly that the consumers wouldn't care if an attractive new format were introduced at all.

This has been tried and failed (DVD-Audio, SACD), though maybe not pushed hard enough, but really there's so little point in surround sound for most music and CDs are plenty good enough for music.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Marty McFlyon08/21/07 at 6:44 pm

Yeah, for hard copies, CDs are about as good as you can get. No matter how good something else was in quality, since downloading and such is so common, there's no way it would catch on with as much strength as any other format already has. Plus, there's already so many existing CDs out there, and people would be pretty reluctant to buy things all over again.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/21/07 at 8:08 pm

The music industry is literally on the verge of collapse. It isn't surprising they are taking measures such as this. Sites like youtube and myspace are easily monitored. Its why videos and songs on those sites vanish rather frequently. Its not just MTV or labels that play a part in the removal. Artists do it as well. Axl Rose didn't want demos from Chinese Democracy or live footage of those songs being all over those types of sites. He hired a company called Tsunami to remove the majority of GNR footage from youtube. Thanks Axl, biggest favor you've done fans of good music in 20 years! ;)

I don't think the music business itself is on the verge of collapse. I think it's more like transformation. Transformation makes everybody nervous. I've said before, most of the music videos I watch on YouTube are vids you couldn't buy if you wanted to, and Viacom won't show them. I could go for an Internet Jukebox, where you pay a bit for each play, but typing in a cc number is a nuisance, and it's also risky. Plus a lot of kids of prime video-watching age don't have cc/debit cards. You can't send a quarter over the Internet like you could drop into a jukebox.

I hate advertising, but if it would help compensate the artists, I would say it's a good cause. Sure, like these megacorporations ever gave a crap about making sure the artist got his fair nickel!

The worst thing the industry could do for all concerned is wage a campaign of Gestappo style suppression and punishment. They need to be patient and figure out a reasonable free market solution, which is what agoraphobicwhacko is saying here. Or are they just a bunch of dumb goons?

When artists and record labels are going to hit a huge roadblock is when they try to deal with p2p sites. Sure, they file lawsuits every now and then against a random user, but people(and these sites) are running their info through proxies, which makes tracing the person(s) much more difficult.

The only way they might be able to tackle the problem is by buying the big p2p sites, but then new ones will just fill the void.

I don't trust P2P sites. Too many evil people out there. It's like picking up a stranger in a dive bar. You might wake up with something terrible!

All I wanted to do was watch a video. Tell it to the judge, kid!

It's not like I was gonna steal them to sell on the black market. It's madness I tell ya.Madness? I've seen a whole bunch of Madness videos on YouTube!

These video sites delete music videos, and the music video channels don't even play ones I want to see. How the hell do people watch music videos anymore? I can go to MTV.ca and watch videos, but their selection is quite slim. I want 80s videos. YouTube had 'em, but took 'em away. Off with their heads I say

I logged on to YouTube last night and every '80s video I wanted to see was there. Of course, many have been re-posted several times... ::)

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Marty McFlyon08/21/07 at 8:21 pm

There's alot of positives to YouTube which Viacom probably overlooks. I'm actually one of those geeks who read the comments section on videos, just to see what people have to say about things (they're like semi message boards in a way). ;)

When it's not vulgarity or spam, I've actually seen lots of people who were introduced to older music that way (I pretty much watch '80s and early-mid '90s videos myself), either kids who are getting into it for the first time, or sometimes people rediscovering it. There's a good chance that could regenerate interest, even if only in a residual amount, in those artists...to where someone might want to buy a full CD of their music, for instance.

Just think of how hard it was to access videos before YouTube came along. In 1998 or in 2002, if you wanted to see some rare '80s video, you'd have to look for someone who actually taped it off MTV or VH1 back in the day, and pay to trade tapes with them. It was much, much harder. Since it's obvious most of these would never get played on the mainstream channels now, it's not like it would be unprofitable in any way. Like I said, if anything it'll just get more people into it and increase interest/sales. It's actually very much like an interactive version of the way the video channels were in the old days.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/21/07 at 8:34 pm

^ Not to mention it was technically illegal to record the videos in the first place.

For instance, if you taped videos off MTV/VH1 and broadcast them on your Wayne's World cable station, you were in a crapload of trouble.

What I'd hate to see is application of advanced source detection software that might soon allow the authorities to figure out the location of the computer that uploaded copyrighted material to YouTube.

I know Wikipedia claims it can track down entry vandals with such software. In the case of Wikipedia, I support it. It's one thing to post an erroneous Wiki entry, it's another to get your jollies posting defamation.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:popkingon08/21/07 at 9:45 pm

The worst thing the industry could do for all concerned is wage a campaign of Gestappo style suppression and punishment. They need to be patient and figure out a reasonable free market solution, which is what agoraphobicwhacko is saying here. Or are they just a bunch of dumb goons?

With the lawsuits against kids downloading illegally, Gestapo-style oppression is exactly what they've done, rather than waking up and actually doing something about it, i.e. new business models for the market.

Not sure if their dumb, but they probably are out of touch with technology.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Haynsoulon08/21/07 at 9:52 pm

Not sure if their dumb, but they probably are out of touch with technology.

Can't wait until WE'RE in control of the big companies. :D

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:x.i.heart.u.xon08/21/07 at 10:55 pm

Hello all.

Okay, well i do believe that it is hard to get a hold of older music these days, and i think it's alright to look at their work, but if you are really into any band, old or new, please please go out and buy their cd! I myself plan to get into the music industry when i am older ;) and i don't think i'd be very happy with people just downloading my music from limewire or what ever, it's so rude! everyone sees muso's as rich and famous celebrities, but there are a hell of a lot of struggling artists out there aye. Oh well meh, no matter what we do, people are still going to download, cause it's free. Meh. life goes on. :-\\ Oh and btw, with the music videos, yeah why are YouTube deleting them??? where the hell else are we supposed to be getting them from aye? i'd like to give em a piece of my mind!!! >:(

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Foo Baron08/22/07 at 12:04 am

WARNING: RANT DETECTOR ACTIVATED.

Got a pill that cures cancer? AIDS? Both? That's patentable. You tell the world how you did it, and we give you 14 years to make back the billion dollars you spent on research and development. After 14 years, you're out of luck.

Your last name is "Disney"? Made a cute musical film called "Steamboat Willie" in 1928, featuring a cartoon mouse? That's under copyright. Anyone who wants to draw that mouse within 25, no, make that 50, wait, time's up, make it 75 years after the death of the guy who drew the mouse, that's a copyright paddlin'! Let us know (umm, and pay us a few bucks!) when your cartoon fracking mouse is about to enter the public domain and we'll extend copyright protection another 25 years. We're from the Government, and we're here to help!

Fark that. No, don't just "fark" that. Roger it positively arsewise.

Fark the DMCA. Fark every lawyer who argued for it. Fark every lobbyist that laid down the lines of coke between every Hollywood starlet's t*bleep*s, and fark every politician that snorted it up. Fark every Supreme Court justice that ruled the Constitutional limitation of "for a limited time" was legally equivalent "infinity minus one, extended every time anyone gets close to infinity".

When elected Emperor, my first action in office will be to acknowledge reality: a compact disc is the same as the instructions on how to duplicate, bit-for-bit, every track recorded thereon. Copyright law shall be enforceable, but for no longer than patent law. The inventors of cartoon mice should be limited to the same intellectual property rights as the inventors of cures for cancer. Fourteen years, and not one day - not one picosecond - longer.

If 14 years is long enough for Pfizer to make a buck from saving a billion lives, that's good enough for any artist, moviemaker, or musician, and may Adam Smith take the hindmost! Fark 'em if---

/tape runs out

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Powerslaveon08/23/07 at 11:14 am

Here's a view on music copyrights and illegal downloading from a friend of mine who's an independent musician who's recorded a bunch of albums over the years. He posted this on his band's forum in reply to a question about how illegal downloading affects him (his band has just recorded a new album and a bunch of "fans" are apparently upset that it hasn't hit Bittorrent yet):

"Downloading DOES affect what we do in quite a big way, but not like you'd expect.

For an indie artist or someone signed to a smaller label, it makes things really hard. The label gives you an advance that's usually based on either projected sales or past sales. If you have a good sales period, they'd be more likely to give you a bigger advance for the next album because they'll recoup and have a surplus of money. You'll also get more of a promo budget which helps make your next release even bigger.

OK, so people download your album rather than buying it at stores. Big deal right? So you get 1000 people downloading your album. That's nothing when you're Metallica and sell 14 million records. When you press 2000 albums at a time (or less) on an indie label, that's HALF of your sales. Sure, some of those people will go buy the album as well, but a great deal won't - let's be honest here.

So what happens? Not only do you miss out on half of your money, but that's money that's NOT going to the label to help you recoup their advance (remember, an advance isn't just money they give you, it's a loan that you have to pay back with album sales before you even see a cent). The label getting their money back is only a small part of the problem - if an album that's in a store isn't moving, they won't reorder it, or they'll make it a low priority to reorder it when it does eventually sell, which further kills your sales.

Eventually the album has its run and it hasn't recouped. The label is down money, you don't see anything, they have less or even no money for their promo budget for you on the next album and they're gonna give you less of an advance to pay for the next album or tour support because it's too risky investing money into a band that isn't selling, regardless of how awesome the product is.

Do that over 3 or 4 albums and you either sink or swim. You either get enough of a reputation that lets you absorb a lot of the damage or (and this is usually the case) you go completely broke trying, and most bands will break up because it's really like banging your head against a wall knowing that your album is absolutely fudgeing killer but you're not seeing any returns for your hard work at all.

I will concede that downloading CAN be a positive thing and introduce new fans to your music. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that a lot of people here now have downloaded Dungeon or LORD albums and gone "hey, this isn't bad!" and become fans. For those people, I say THANK YOU. They're the sort of people who will come to your shows and buy your merch, and if it means losing an album sale every now and then to have long term supporters who will likely eventually go buy all of your stuff, then there's no harm in that at all. But sadly, great people like that are in the minority when it comes to downloading.

As far as actual figures go, I can't say for sure. Getting firm figures out of any label (either because they're evasive or because of screw-arounds with accounting periods and 3rd-party payments pending, etc.) is next to impossible, but sales are most definitely down now worldwide due to downloading."

www.lord.net.au

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Airrideron08/23/07 at 7:13 pm

It's things like this that make me weep for...well, everything.

I'm of the opinion that nowadays, if there's a wrong choice to be made, those in charge will make it.

That's why the only music I've listened to in years are OSTs off of game sites and the like. Actual record company music has gone too far off the rails for me to follow. Besides, I don't like the bulk of the music that's billed as the hot thing right now

I've even had a conspiracy theory quietly brewing that the record label companies want control of more than what music we listen to, and they'll do it by placing a police state-like control over the Internet.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/23/07 at 8:05 pm

These copyright laws don't always help the creative artist. Often times it is a corporation who owns the rights and hogs the royalties from a given work of art and not the artist. In fact I first heard of this 70 years post mortem business when my favorite band, The Legendary Pink Dots, said their former record company (Play It Again Sam) tried to seize control of their music until "Seventy years after we are all dead." I looked it up, and sure enough, there it was.

As for music videos on YouTube, I think for the most part the uploading of those videos by fans provides great promotion for the artists. Only a handful of artists who have ever made music videos get any kind of regular rotation on MTV/VH1.

I might be wrong here, but I'll bet record companies and publishers are more likely to b!tch about it than creative artists. ::)

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Foo Baron08/23/07 at 9:43 pm

For an indie artist or someone signed to a smaller label, it makes things really hard. The label gives you an advance that's usually based on either projected sales or past sales. If you have a good sales period, they'd be more likely to give you a bigger advance for the next album because they'll recoup and have a surplus of money. You'll also get more of a promo budget which helps make your next release even bigger.

Why do musicians sign such contracts? The label isn't giving them an advance, it's loaning them money that they have to pay back if they don't sell as many records as the label thinks they will.

In the business world, that's called mortgaging the house to start a small business, and it almost invariably results in the business owner going broke. What's wrong with venture capital as the model? You get some buddies together, you tell them it'll cost $10K to produce some music, burn some CDs, host some tracks on a website, and spend a few hours a week calling the local bars to see if there are any gigs available. If the band incorporates itself and 10 people get together (maybe only 5 are in the band, and the others are music fans) and chip in $1000 apiece, everybody gets 10% of the profits. Maybe they people lose money. But due to the magic of incorporation, nobody can lose more than they put in.

Up until the 90s, the only people that had the technology to distribute music worldwide were "labels". The labels (be they the major ones or the independent ones) really did add value -- you couldn't sell music anywhere other than a record store, and you couldn't get your music heard by anyone unless it was played on a radio station.

Worse, the music business isn't like most businesses. It's more like a lottery. For every artist that makes it big, there are thousands who don't, and hundreds who barely scrape by.

Now, lotteries are great if you're in the business of selling lottery tickets. You don't mind paying $10M to one person a year, so long as you can collect $2/week from 10M people, because you net $90M in profits.

The music industry's also great if you're in the business of selling music contracts. You don't mind paying this year's Britney her $10M -- so long as you can collect $10000 apiece from 10,000 bands that don't make it, you'll still come out $90M ahead.

But are lotteries really all that great for the players? Well, not so much. So why, especially in an age where a label doesn't add value, would anyone sign with a label when knowing full well that the label doesn't have their best interests at heart?

The music industry is like a lottery, but thanks to the widespread availability of computing and communications technology, it's a lottery where the players no longer need to buy tickets in order to win. RIAA has figured this out, and while they may be annoyed by piracy, the eldritch horror that really keeps them up at night is knowing what happens to their business model when the average garage band figures it out.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Marty McFlyon08/23/07 at 10:47 pm

These copyright laws don't always help the creative artist. Often times it is a corporation who owns the rights and hogs the royalties from a given work of art and not the artist. In fact I first heard of this 70 years post mortem business when my favorite band, The Legendary Pink Dots, said their former record company (Play It Again Sam) tried to seize control of their music until "Seventy years after we are all dead." I looked it up, and sure enough, there it was.

As for music videos on YouTube, I think for the most part the uploading of those videos by fans provides great promotion for the artists. Only a handful of artists who have ever made music videos get any kind of regular rotation on MTV/VH1.

I might be wrong here, but I'll bet record companies and publishers are more likely to b!tch about it than creative artists. ::)

I agree. Viacom is more concerned about it than the artists are, since they're the ones forcing YT to take the videos off. They're kinda selective, but it seems like they're more anal about stuff that was recorded from MTV or VH1 back in the day. Like I've said before, if it hurts a potential sale of something available on the market, or cuts into ratings of something you could see on TV anytime, then I can understand this. Especially for, say episodes of a television show.

I can even understand prohibiting software that allows you to download videos onto your computer (although alot of those low-resolution videos wouldn't compare to DVD or even VHS quality anyway, lol), but I see no harm in people watching them. It's kinda silly when you think about it, because music videos really are just long commercials for the songs. They were designed to sell albums in the first place. ;)

BTW, as simple as it sounds, you know what worked really well for me when I first started going online? Those 30-second song samples Amazon and a few other now nonexistant (or merged) sites had. It was the perfect mix of new and old-school, because they're enough to get a feel for what a song sounds like, but not long enough to where you can "steal" anything. That made me buy albums I might've not been as interested in otherwise. I did this both for exploring deeper into '80s and earlier '90s music, as well as stuff I wasn't as familar with.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/23/07 at 11:18 pm

Why do musicians sign such contracts? The label isn't giving them an advance, it's loaning them money that they have to pay back if they don't sell as many records as the label thinks they will.

In the business world, that's called mortgaging the house to start a small business, and it almost invariably results in the business owner going broke. What's wrong with venture capital as the model? You get some buddies together, you tell them it'll cost $10K to produce some music, burn some CDs, host some tracks on a website, and spend a few hours a week calling the local bars to see if there are any gigs available. If the band incorporates itself and 10 people get together (maybe only 5 are in the band, and the others are music fans) and chip in $1000 apiece, everybody gets 10% of the profits. Maybe they people lose money. But due to the magic of incorporation, nobody can lose more than they put in.

Up until the 90s, the only people that had the technology to distribute music worldwide were "labels". The labels (be they the major ones or the independent ones) really did add value -- you couldn't sell music anywhere other than a record store, and you couldn't get your music heard by anyone unless it was played on a radio station.

Worse, the music business isn't like most businesses. It's more like a lottery. For every artist that makes it big, there are thousands who don't, and hundreds who barely scrape by.

Now, lotteries are great if you're in the business of selling lottery tickets. You don't mind paying $10M to one person a year, so long as you can collect $2/week from 10M people, because you net $90M in profits.

The music industry's also great if you're in the business of selling music contracts. You don't mind paying this year's Britney her $10M -- so long as you can collect $10000 apiece from 10,000 bands that don't make it, you'll still come out $90M ahead.

But are lotteries really all that great for the players? Well, not so much. So why, especially in an age where a label doesn't add value, would anyone sign with a label when knowing full well that the label doesn't have their best interests at heart?

The music industry is like a lottery, but thanks to the widespread availability of computing and communications technology, it's a lottery where the players no longer need to buy tickets in order to win. RIAA has figured this out, and while they may be annoyed by piracy, the eldritch horror that really keeps them up at night is knowing what happens to their business model when the average garage band figures it out.

The advantage is anybody can do it.The disadvantage is anybody can do it.

It's great from my end of things, producing a radio program, that:a. It is cost effective for small labels to produce a few thousand units at a time.b. Artists can burn their music onto CD-R and send it directly to me.Some of the finest composers in the world are teaching at universities and their music has no commercial potential. I'm one of the few actively seeking to showcase their talents.

However, the garage band phenomenon is a disaster. No-talent chimps who couldn't make a demo tape in the '80s can now get a CD pressed. College radio broke all those great bands from Elvis Costello to The Smiths to Nirvana. The great ones are still out there, but it's the proverbial "needle-in-the-haystack." The problem started about 10 years ago and has been worsening since. Go to any university station and you'll find the music director overwhelmed with amateurs all wanting to be the next Decembrists or the next Gnarls Barclay.

Rock music has always lionized the great new breakthrough artist. That's because the artists use to have to work their azzes off just to get a 7" single pressed. Not anymore, my friends, not anymore! ::)

I agree. Viacom is more concerned about it than the artists are, since they're the ones forcing YT to take the videos off. They're kinda selective, but it seems like they're more anal about stuff that was recorded from MTV or VH1 back in the day. Like I've said before, if it hurts a potential sale of something available on the market, or cuts into ratings of something you could see on TV anytime, then I can understand this. Especially for, say episodes of a television show.

I can even understand prohibiting software that allows you to download videos onto your computer (although alot of those low-resolution videos wouldn't compare to DVD or even VHS quality anyway, lol), but I see no harm in people watching them. It's kinda silly when you think about it, because music videos really are just long commercials for the songs. They were designed to sell albums in the first place. ;)

BTW, as simple as it sounds, you know what worked really well for me when I first started going online? Those 30-second song samples Amazon and a few other now nonexistant (or merged) sites had. It was the perfect mix of new and old-school, because they're enough to get a feel for what a song sounds like, but not long enough to where you can "steal" anything. That made me buy albums I might've not been as interested in otherwise. I did this both for exploring deeper into '80s and earlier '90s music, as well as stuff I wasn't as familar with.

Some hacker will find his way around anything, but as long as sites like YouTube try their best to prevent downloading by users, I think they should be left alone.

My friend Sam figured out how to download off of YouTube. It was driving him nuts. He collects jazz. All of sudden these rare clips of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, and so on, started popping up on YouTube, stuff he'd been chasing for 20 years. He was like a penniless kid peeping in a candy store. If you want to steal something badly enough, you'll figure out a way to do it.

I would love to build a collection myself, but I don't mind following a "no downloading" rule if it's for a good cause.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Foo Baron08/24/07 at 2:33 am

However, the garage band phenomenon is a disaster. No-talent chimps who couldn't make a demo tape in the '80s can now get a CD pressed. College radio broke all those great bands from Elvis Costello to The Smiths to Nirvana. The great ones are still out there, but it's the proverbial "needle-in-the-haystack." The problem started about 10 years ago and has been worsening since. Go to any university station and you'll find the music director overwhelmed with amateurs all wanting to be the next Decembrists or the next Gnarls Barclay.

Sure, but that's a problem for software to solve. Automated social-networking music sites such as last.fm solve the problem; if you like X, Y, and Z, and A's beats are similar (as judged by the computer) to X's, and six of your friends are listening to B, and C samples Y and Z -- and lays it down to Z's backbeat, which twelve of your friends like -- you'll probably like all three bands.

It's up to the DJ to decide whether A, B, or C are worthy of inclusion in the week's podcast, but narrowing the field from 10,000 bands is a problem for computers, not humans.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:mach!ne_he@don08/24/07 at 11:56 am

Lately, its not just music video's from MTV and VH1 that Viacom's been deleting. They've been deleting quite a few video's from there other TV shows and networks as well. I used to love to watch episodes of Nickelodeon shows from the '80s and early/mid '90s, but now most of those have been deleted.

I don't understand that because, it looks like they don't ever plan to release those shows on DVD, and they never get shown on TV, so I guess they don't want anyone to ever be able to watch them :(

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Marty McFlyon08/24/07 at 3:49 pm

That's true, it's almost like they want it both ways. They won't show it, but you can't watch it either (and without an audience watching it, there's far less chance it'll generate enough interest to get a DVD release in the future or something). It's like they just want things to fall into obscurity.

I've also noticed alot of other things getting axed too, like the Jerry Springer runaway teens show from 1993 that I did a thread on. One thing I find especially disheartening and annoying was this guy who posted a TON of Unsolved Mysteries segments (again, which don't get airplay on Lifetime anymore) got deleted. Those aren't just entertainment, alot of those cases haven't been solved. If the right person had come across them, I'm sure some fugitives might've had the chance to have been captured, or missing people found, etc.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:mach!ne_he@don08/24/07 at 4:19 pm

^Yeah, I don't really understand there logic. It's sort of like when a TV network moves a show to another time slot on another night in the middle of the season without announcing it before hand. Then when the ratings tank they wonder why. This is what Fox did with Family Guy before its first cancellation. For many classic shows they say there's not enough demand to release them on DVD, but if there not shown on television how do they know that?

Also, I don't understand why they would feel those shows even need to be taken off Youtube. Take a show like Hey Dude for example. There were about 10 or more episodes of that show on Youtube a couple of months ago, until they got deleted. Its not on DVD or TV so how are a few episode's on Youtube hurting Viacom? How could a show that hasn't appeared on Nickelodeon in over a decade hurt its ratings?

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:gopheron08/24/07 at 10:14 pm

remember you could record on tapes from other tapes and from the radio remember that and you can record on cds and record from the radio on cds too so why did this not get noticed when tapes where around cus well i don't know and why is it getting noticed now the same thing wus happening before and with cds the numbers went up but were never that low from the tapes to cds so i guess it wus the fact that they did this to themselves recordable tapes and cds they ment no harm but it got out of control and why havent they passed some law that says musicians have to just stop posting music on the internet that would solve all the problems or allow posting but no downloading so we get to hear it but don't get to have it cus once this happens and cds stop allowing people to take the music off of them then napster will go down cus there will be no way to post music and wahlah every thing will be fixed i think!!!!! 8) :o :D ;)

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/24/07 at 10:57 pm

Sure, but that's a problem for software to solve. Automated social-networking music sites such as last.fm solve the problem; if you like X, Y, and Z, and A's beats are similar (as judged by the computer) to X's, and six of your friends are listening to B, and C samples Y and Z -- and lays it down to Z's backbeat, which twelve of your friends like -- you'll probably like all three bands.

It's up to the DJ to decide whether A, B, or C are worthy of inclusion in the week's podcast, but narrowing the field from 10,000 bands is a problem for computers, not humans.

Something I experienced way back as music director of my college radio station. They'll call you up and pester you week in week out, "Yo yo yo, you playin' our sh*t or what?"Sometimes it's a crummy band. Sometimes it's a crummy record label representing crummy bands. They offer you free copies as to giveaway. Oh yeah, send me five copies of your CD, you'll suck five times as much! But the thing of it is, you can't tell somebody their music sucks. You don't know who they know. Maybe it's just a lousy garage band from Buffalo, but maybe the lead singer's brother is VP for marketing at Sony, and they both get a grudge against you, and the Sony guy shuts off the spigot and he badmouths your station to the other bigshots and it takes years to repair the damage. It's been known to happen. So you gotta be diplomatic. Here was the magic phrase: "Light rotation." The rep would ask, "OK, so how's Johnny Airsick and the Paper Bags doing for you?""Oh, light rotation; a few spins." That meant is was under the computer table in the rejects bin."Anything you could do to help 'em out?""Well, I'll talk to the DJs, put in a good word, but I can't tell them what to play, wish I could, bud." That meant is was going to stay under the computer table in the rejects bin."OK, dude, I'll give you a buzz next week."And you wish the guy would come down with a tropical disease between now and then! ::)

I once got the SOB rep from Rykodisc mad at me. I still remember it because I had to grind my teeth to stop my tongue. This guy Jamie threatened me, "All I have to do is contact five people in this industry and you won't get any service at all!" I successfully did not say, "All I have to do is drive over there to Salem and you'll be eating through a straw for the rest of your life!" Oh boy, I wanted to! He got his in the end, Rykodisc canned him, and he ended up working for Righteous Babe records; sentenced to pushing Ani DiFranco CDs in perpetuity!

There was a Brendan Fraser movie called "Airheads." It was sort of a low budget comedy, but It was one of my favorites because I lived through it. "The Lone Rangers? How do you pluralize the Lone Ranger? Shouldn't you call yourselves the Three Rangers?""Got know idea what you're saying, dude."

Then in my years as an alumnus, I thought email would put an end to the obnoxious telphone calls. It didn't. I heard music director after music director put up with the same crap!

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Marty McFlyon08/24/07 at 11:13 pm

remember you could record on tapes from other tapes and from the radio remember that and you can record on cds and record from the radio on cds too so why did this not get noticed when tapes where around cus well i don't know and why is it getting noticed now the same thing wus happening before and with cds the numbers went up but were never that low from the tapes to cds so i guess it wus the fact that they did this to themselves recordable tapes and cds they ment no harm but it got out of control and why havent they passed some law that says musicians have to just stop posting music on the internet that would solve all the problems or allow posting but no downloading so we get to hear it but don't get to have it cus once this happens and cds stop allowing people to take the music off of them then napster will go down cus there will be no way to post music and wahlah every thing will be fixed i think!!!!! 8) :o :D ;)

I've actually wondered about that too. I guess the main difference with making tapes from CDs or from prerecorded cassettes (which is something I actually still do sometimes, lol) was that it was music you already owned which you were making your own mix of. Whereas if it's downloaded online it could hurt the actual sales or success of the artist.

What always worked for me were the song samples, because you can't really steal a low quality lousy 30 second clip, but it's enough to draw you in as well. Perhaps something like that would solve the problem or at least decrease it. I kinda wonder if that's one reason the industry has been in kind of a "dead state" since like 2003, without really any classic albums or new artists (in the mainstream at least)? Everything like this probably goes hand in hand.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:mach!ne_he@don08/25/07 at 3:12 pm

I've actually wondered about that too. I guess the main difference with making tapes from CDs or from prerecorded cassettes (which is something I actually still do sometimes, lol) was that it was music you already owned which you were making your own mix of. Whereas if it's downloaded online it could hurt the actual sales or success of the artist.

What always worked for me were the song samples, because you can't really steal a low quality lousy 30 second clip, but it's enough to draw you in as well. Perhaps something like that would solve the problem or at least decrease it. I kinda wonder if that's one reason the industry has been in kind of a "dead state" since like 2003, without really any classic albums or new artists (in the mainstream at least)? Everything like this probably goes hand in hand.

I still use the 30 second sound clips from time to time. If I'm thinking about buying an album, I'll go to amazon.com and check out the song samples for a CD before I buy it.

Albums are becoming too repetitive these days. Why bother buying an average chart topping album when there's only 2 or 3 good songs and 10 songs of filler.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:whistledogon08/25/07 at 6:30 pm

I'll only buy an album if it's by an artist that I am a big fan of, or maybe if I hear clips and like alot of the songs on the album. I often visit Amazon to hear clips as well. It's not worth it to buy a whole CD just to get maybe one or two good songs. Though I do that with LPs all the time, which is a different story cause I can get those from anywhere between 50c - $3.

Paying $3 to get a whole album with a few good songs is okPaying like $15 to get a whole album with a few good songs is ridiculous

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:Powerslaveon08/31/07 at 4:03 pm

However, the garage band phenomenon is a disaster. No-talent chimps who couldn't make a demo tape in the '80s can now get a CD pressed. College radio broke all those great bands from Elvis Costello to The Smiths to Nirvana. The great ones are still out there, but it's the proverbial "needle-in-the-haystack." The problem started about 10 years ago and has been worsening since. Go to any university station and you'll find the music director overwhelmed with amateurs all wanting to be the next Decembrists or the next Gnarls Barclay.

Rock music has always lionized the great new breakthrough artist. That's because the artists use to have to work their azzes off just to get a 7" single pressed. Not anymore, my friends, not anymore!

Ain't that the truth. I do radio, and a zine and a website and I get crap bands sending me things all the time. Occasionally they're marked as "demos" but mostly they're fobbed off as a bona fide album or EP. Even ten years ago bands still had to make demo tapes just to get gigs. Now they can get a CD burner and label printer, bash out any old crap, press it themselves and sell it through their MySpace page as an "album" and claim to be a legitimate band. I know bands that are videotaping themselves at rehearsal and selling that. This sort of crap is also killing the industry if you ask me.

Subject:Re: Music copyrights

Written By:MaxwellSmarton08/31/07 at 6:56 pm

Ain't that the truth. I do radio, and a zine and a website and I get crap bands sending me things all the time. Occasionally they're marked as "demos" but mostly they're fobbed off as a bona fide album or EP. Even ten years ago bands still had to make demo tapes just to get gigs. Now they can get a CD burner and label printer, bash out any old crap, press it themselves and sell it through their MySpace page as an "album" and claim to be a legitimate band. I know bands that are videotaping themselves at rehearsal and selling that. This sort of crap is also killing the industry if you ask me.

"Wayne's World!Wayne's World!Party time!Excellent!"

D.I.Y. only works when you have any business doing it in the first place! ::)